Oba Femi is the last man in WWE with a believable path to the World Heavyweight Championship, and Roman Reigns has already run through everyone else. Every name that once looked like a threat has been checked off in 2026.
Reigns closed the book on his story with Seth Rollins at SummerSlam. The Tribal Chief has run through WWE since winning the Royal Rumble match, beating CM Punk, Jacob Fatu, and Rollins in premium live event main events along the way.
No position has been stronger for Reigns since his 1,300-plus day title reign ended at WrestleMania 40 in 2024. The OTC is scheduled for Monday Night Raw tonight and is advertised for the Money in the Bank PLE in October.
Punk, Fatu, and Rollins are all crossed off. The list of wrestlers who could plausibly walk out of a PLE main event with the title is now one name long.
LA Knight and Solo Sikoa worked together to beat the rest of The Bloodline at SummerSlam, and keeping that alliance alive for Raw tonight is the obvious short-term booking. Neither man has ever solved Reigns once the bell rings.
Sikoa spent the better part of a year as the fake Tribal Chief and lost that argument decisively. Knight has been positioned as a top-selling act rather than the wrestler who ends the biggest run in modern WWE history.
Reigns also holds a card nobody else at the table does. The champion can reverse his stance on Bloodline interference whenever it suits him, which turns either matchup into a formality before it starts.
Femi beat Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam for the second time, taking the main event slot over Punk and Cody Rhodes to do it. The Ruler already holds the King of the Ring crown, and Lesnar endorsed him as the future of the company once the Hell in a Cell match was over. Commentary spent the night calling Femi “The Next Big Thing.”
Two wins over The Beast and a King of the Ring victory leave exactly one target worth chasing. The top championship in WWE is that target, and Reigns is the man carrying it.
Every other direction is a step backward. Dropping Femi into a midcard program now would waste the most valuable momentum on the roster, and there is no opponent left who adds anything to the resume.
The complication is timing. Booking Reigns against Femi at Money in the Bank in October is almost certainly not the plan. A first-time meeting between the two biggest attractions in the company belongs on a WrestleMania card, not on an October show that has never carried that kind of weight.
Six months of television have to be filled first. Reigns needs a challenger who can survive a program without being exposed, and Femi needs opponents who make The Ruler look like a monster without spending the real match early.
Femi is the answer, and everyone watching already knows it. Two Lesnar wins. A King of the Ring crown. A main event spot over Punk and Rhodes on the biggest show of the summer. No wrestler in WWE has built a case this fast, and none has less left to prove below the top of the card.
Reigns has spent 2026 dismantling everyone the company put in front of him, and the well is dry. Knight is not it. Sikoa is not it. The Bloodline has nothing left to throw at a champion who beat all of it already, and another run through the same names would insult everyone still watching.
The next chapter is The Ruler. The only real question is whether WWE has the discipline to protect the match until WrestleMania instead of burning it on an October PLE for a short-term rating. Hold it. Build it. Then let Femi take the title in the biggest match of the year and start the run this company has been waiting for.
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